The aims of this research are to develop and characterize chemical oxidizing agents capable of converting aromatic hydrocarbons directly to arene oxides, and to demonstrate this capability by the synthesis of a variety of arene oxides. In view of the strong indication that arene oxides are directly responsible for the development of cancer caused by various aromatic compounds, a convenient synthesis for these intermediates would presumably greatly stimulate research aimed at determining their metabolic fate, the reasons for their carcinogenic properties, and possible methods for controlling this devastating property. At the present time the reagents which look the most promising for converting arenes to arene oxides are peroxycarboximidic acids. Thus the specific goals of this project are: (1) to prepare and characterize the oxygen atom transfer activity of a variety of differently substituted peroxycarboximidic acids, and (2) utilize these reagents to synthesize a variety of arene oxides in one step from the arenes.